Somnium Amicus
by SlythCommand
Summary: Madotsuki visits Masada-Sensei. A series of short connected drabbles showing the development of a friendship in a dream.
1. Color

**T**he stairs were dark, and it was cold. There were arms, multitudes of arms, long and grasping upwards, and she wrapped her own arms around herself and shivered.

Down the stairs was a lobby, less cold than the stairs, and brighter. Past an elevator there was a fire, the source of the heat, and she flinched. If she had some water—the rain pelted down while she twisted her umbrella, and the fire died down, disappearing as if nothing had burned moments before. Just that cinder smell in the air that made her cough as she walked through the arch, into a dank room with shelves and shelves and shelves. She barely noticed the wet sliding sound of the creature that followed her through the room, wide mouth opening and closing with a wet smack.

Instead, Madotsuki moved towards the door, a familiar sort of feeling making her smile.

The room through the doorway was so bright! Madotsuki covered her eyes with both hands, the rain wetting her hair and clothes and pattering on the white white white floor. After a moment her eyes adjusted, and along with the patter of rain she could hear faint music from the next room; through the open archway she could see a white table and white chairs, everything white.

Everything white, except for the tall figure clothed in black at the immense piano, in front of the large window, black space and white pinprick stars gliding lazily by.

He pressed a key with one long, white finger, a low note issuing before he turned and noticed her. He was just as black and white as the room, or ship—stark white face with a long, angular nose and a slightly frowning mouth, made almost unreadable by lack of eyebrows. His hair was as black as his clothes, chin length and straight, almost severe.

His eyes went in different directions, the whites instead a dark gray in which his black irises swam, the left eye looking downwards and the right eye gazing towards the ceiling.

He frowned at Madotsuki and spoke--words didn't issue from his mouth, instead a jumble of tones, but she understood and hunched her shoulders, embarrassed.

"I'm sorry, Masada-Sensei." And just like that, the rain stopped, and he turned again to wipe droplets from the piano keys, creating an odd melody. Going over to the small white table and its two chairs, Madotsuki produced a teapot. "Would you like some tea?" This time the tones responded by her shoulder, a negative, and looking up she noticed Masada-Sensei looking at her curiously, before he very slowly extended two long pianist fingers and hesitantly plucked at the shoulder of her pink sweater.

Madotsuki realized she was the only spot of color in the entire ship, and how strange she must look! But he seemed to like the color, plucking once more before smiling and moving away, back towards the piano.

Smiling to herself as he began to play again, Madotsuki resolved to bring him something colorful the next time she was in space.


	2. Flowers

**T**hey're bright and sunny, red-yellow-orange, and there's a cinnamony scent to them. Her arms are full with them, and Madotsuki is glad to find herself again in that room with shelves—will he smile?

It had been a nice thing to see.

She isn't blinded with white, not with the bundle in her arms; somehow the colors of the flowers dim the harshness of the stark white, warming everything.

She hadn't noticed before that it was so cold.

He's at the piano (always) so she goes straight to the table and sets the flowers down, a simple white vase blending into all that constant white. The flowers look like a sunburst, and they give off a heat as they fill the ship with their cinnamon smell. Masada-Sensei looks from the piano, pressing a few keys before coming over, hesitant and confused. Madotsuki just warms her hands over the flowers and smiles.

"Will you teach me to play, Masada-Sensei?"


	3. Duet

**H**e shows her a chord, guides her hand, and she grins.

"I remember this!" The chord he shows her is followed by another from memory, and another, until she has her own melody. Halfway through she stops and looks at him; he seems perplexed, but he's smiling again, and that's nice.

"Will you play?" He looks to the window for a moment, watching the stars pass, and then nods, moving further down the piano. He presses a key, and then looks to her, waiting. She presses a similar key in response, and they smile at each other.

They begin to play.

Later as Madotsuki trudges through snow, crunch crunch crunch to the igloo to the Pastel Shoal, she hums to herself and wraps her scarf tighter.


	4. Withered

**T**he flowers are withered.

First she is crying, then screaming madly, then pinching her cheeks with bloody hands, again again again—

Madotsuki stares at her hands and pants, sheets tangled around her and her pillow on the floor. The television is on in the corner, colored bars flickering and lighting the dark room. The low electric hum makes her want to throw up, and she struggles out of the sheets, bare feet thumping across wood and carpet to the balcony—she needs air, her room feels stifling for the first time, and she doesn't even think about writing this in her journal.

For once, the sky is clear of smog and Madotsuki can see the stars above her apartment building.

She cries herself back to sleep.


	5. Careening

**S**he's running, running, running down the stairs and she doesn't feel the cold, not with barely-dried tears on her cheeks, but she's not fast enou—

careening down the stairs now but it's a smooth roll on her bike, the bell jangling when she hits the bottom and speeds through the lobby. She swerves into the file room, and crashes going around the first turn, but she's up and running again, powering through that first white room right into—

He's at the piano (always, always, _always_) and by then she just _can't_ stop, still careening until he's babbling at her in confused, flustered tones while she cries and hugs him.

She's so happy.

He's at the piano.

Later he holds her face and frowns, mouth pursed to one side, perplexed. She grins up at him, laughing and crying.

_You're strange._ he finally declares with a shake of his head.

"Just play something," she responds, wiping her face with her sweater sleeves, smile softening.

The flowers are gone, but she doesn't notice.


	6. Yawn

**S**itting at the stark table and listening to him play, she watches the stars pass and rests her head on her hands. Her eyelids droop-so much emotion she's worn out, it shouldn't be possible but she finds herself yawning, eyes slipping shut.

Her next awareness, a second's blink after her eyes closing, is of a sigh and thin arms lifting her, movement through space, and a softness beneath her. Something warm is tucked over her, and then barely there fingertips flitter over her bangs.

She sleeps without dreams within a dream.


	7. Crash

**S**he wakes to claxons-or nearly wakes; this is not her bed in her tiny, dark apartment. Madotsuki hadn't been through the third doorway in Masada-Sensei's ship, but the bright whiteness of the room and the stars zooming past the window confirm to her that she is still onboard.

Zooming?

That's more disconcerting than awakening in a strange bed (oh dear, she must have fallen asleep, how terribly rude), more troubling than flashing red lights and a blaring alarm.

Masada-Sensei's ship never _zooms_. He isn't the zooming sort.

She rolls and stumbles out of the bed, the ship shaking alarmingly. In the next room, Masada-Sensei is at the piano (of course), frantically playing. He almost pounds the keys in an attempt to pilot, she supposes, but it does very little to halt the growth of the blood-rust-clay blur in the window.

At her entrance he turns and she catches the panic on his face, before he rushes over, calling her name (the tones she knows he's come to use, at least). She's swept along, a long arm around her pulling her over to the table and shoving her under it. It's bolted to the floor like heavy furniture on seafaring ships, and Madotsuki wraps her arms around a table leg.

She has time to wonder how he'll fit beneath the table, and then he's striding back to the piano-the controls he'd let her play with like a child.

He makes it, almost, but the impact jars her bones and hurls him across the room.


End file.
